the National Review reported.<\/a><\/p>\nProsecutors said Elmi, an immigrant from Somalia, was one of four associates who ran four phony agencies in Minnesota \u2014 Reva Health, Reva Autism, Helpful Housing, Homefelt Assisted Living \u2014 that scammed the government health care program out of more than $4.5 million since 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Salman Ahmed Elmi was charged with a total of eight counts of aiding and abetting theft last week, the National Review reported. Linkedin\/posts\/salmanelmi<\/p>\n
Prosecutors said that Elmi ran four phony agencies in the state he used to swindle millions out of Medicaid.\u00a0 Facebook\/ Salman Elmi<\/p>\n
Elmi himself billed Medicaid for more than $1 million in unprovided or illegible services, according to prosecutors.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Elmi and his associates \u2014 Frank Reeves, Viktoriya Komonash and Andrea Sampson \u2013were also running a related pay-for-sex scheme, where they would recruit homeless and drug-addicted young women and rent apartments in their name, according to prosecutors.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The crew would then steal the identities of the men paying for sex and bill Medicaid in their names, court records show.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to prosecutors, Elmi himself billed Medicaid for more than $1 million in unprovided or illegible services.\u00a0 Linkedin\/posts\/salmanelmi<\/p>\n
Investigators had been tracking the pay-for-sex con since 2019, prosecutors said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sampson and Reeves were busted for their role in the sex trafficking ring last week, the outlet reported.<\/p>\n
Elmi, meanwhile, had been championed by Minnesota\u2019s Department of Human Services as a rags-to-riches story of refugee success in the state.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The alleged fraudster had started a business \u201cto help inspire other people,\u201d in a now-deleted profile celebrating him as an \u201coutstanding refugee\u201d on the state\u2019s website.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The alleged fraudster had started a business \u201cto help inspire other people\u201d in a since-deleted profile celebrating him as an \u201coutstanding refugee\u201d on the state\u2019s website.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Besides helping to create the bogus businesses used to rip off Medicaid, Elmi was also the founder of Tavolo, an AI marketing app for restaurants.<\/p>\n
Elmi\u2019s partial ownership in Tavolo allowed him to secure a loan and start Reva Health, one of the fake agencies, the National Review reported.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
He was released from custody on Monday, but was required to give up his passport and remain in the state. He\u2019s due back in court on Oct. 4.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The arrests come amid an ongoing scandal in the state where investigators believe they have uncovered billions of dollars in welfare fraud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An alleged Minnesota fraudster once hailed as an \u201coutstanding refugee\u201d by the state was reportedly part of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[51],"tags":[22045,3522,42237,45129,1984,3265],"class_list":["post-384863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-somalia","tag-medicaid","tag-minnesota","tag-refugee","tag-sex-trafficking","tag-somalia","tag-us-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@africa\/117119814656802201","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}